The ever-elusive "feeling like a woman" - what the hell is it supposed to be? Rant incoming...

submitted by vitunrotta from self.GenderCritical

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[–]tuesday 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Want has to start from some personal motive. That need for power & control is an obvious fact of individual men, but I can't follow the reasoning of how such individuals could decide that the way to regain control over patriarchal values & the entire class of women is to become one.

The eunuchs have always been in charge of the harem.

It just used to be more direct. But they can't tell women what to do anymore, not the way they used to, as in a direct order "you will do as you are told little inferior woman who can't vote". So if they can no longer rely on a direct order being immediately obeyed, what else is there besides infiltrating the harem, claiming to be us and then presto, hello world here's what "women" think, now all the rest of you ladies should be nice to the other little women.

It's a very old strategy which has been updated for modern times, that's all.

Guess what? Most romance novels written in the 70's and 80's (and probably further back then that), where the woman in the novels "enjoyed" being harassed stalked and dominated, all those "bodice rippers" back in the day -- most of them were written by MEN with female pen names! Infiltrating groups of women, is what men DO. It's not an accident.

[–]MarkTwainiac 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The eunuchs have always been in charge of the harem.

It just used to be more direct. But they can't tell women what to do anymore, not the way they used to, as in a direct order "you will do as you are told little inferior woman who can't vote". So if they can no longer rely on a direct order being immediately obeyed, what else is there besides infiltrating the harem, claiming to be us and then presto, hello world here's what "women" think, now all the rest of you ladies should be nice to the other little women.

It's a very old strategy which has been updated for modern times, that's all.

Uh, no. The eunuchs who were in charge of the harems (plural) were enslaved men in the Arab Muslim world and Ottoman empire who were castrated when they were taken into captivity. These men did not have to "infiltrate" the harems, they were placed there by their owners/overlords who wanted the female sex slaves in the harems to always be under the eye and thumb of men - just not men who could fuck them.

But the slavers of the Muslim Arab world and Ottoman empire didn't just castrate their male slaves so the male slaves wouldn't be able to screw the female slaves (or other females, either) - they also castrated the boys & men they took into captivity so that male slaves would be unable to procreate, and thus would never have a chance to have a blood bond with a child or have families of their own. For many/most men in most cultures through history, a man's ability to "spread his seed," "father a child" or brood and "leave a lineage" of descendants has been enormously important, and a great source of pride. Patriarchal Muslim Arab and Ottoman culture placed an especially strong emphasis on fathering children, so removing their male slaves' ability to procreate was done as a special way of showing who was in charge, denying the slaves their humanity, and inflicting an extra cruelty on them.

Also, castration itself was very painful; many boys & men died of it and the infections it led to. Others had pain the rest of their lives.

What happened with the enslaved eunuchs and the harems in the Muslim world in the past is nothing like what's going on in the West today. At all. This is not a useful analogy.

What's more, to speak about harems and eunuchs in this way seems like you're making light of the unspeakable suffering of the millions of girls & women who made into sex slaves and the millions of boys & men who were made into enslaved eunuchs during the long era of Muslim Arab and Ottoman slavery.